by Laura Childs (2004)
Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is catering a Charleston benefit, a "Ghost Crawl" through Jasmine Cemetery, when the organizer drops dead—and it looks like foul play. Theodosia stirs things up with her own investigation, and gets into hot water up to her neck.
Peter Høeg
Miss Smilla Jasperson isn't prepared to accept the Copenhagen police's verdict of accidental death when a neighbour's six-year-old boy falls from the roof of a block of flats. She's a Greenlander, and her feeling for snow tells her that the footprints in the snow are a clue to what happened.
Dorothy Cannell
Ellie, who has had her share of disappointments and uncertainties, is fighting another battle. Having recently had twins, she's feeling the overwhelming (but welcome) responsibility of having two adorable babies and is trying to regain her self esteem. It is this quest which leads Ellie smack into the middle of another murder mystery.
Susan Wittig Albert
Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper- making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half- brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.To put the unsavory business out of her mind, she's gathering supplies for making paper. But in a patch of yucca plants, she finds a body-cause of death unknown. Many residents of Pecan Springs live seemingly simple lives that hide complex and dangerous pasts, and it appears the victim was one of them. Now, while unraveling secrets that hit close to home, China must set the record straight-and find a killer.
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's earlier works, Mitigating Circumstances and Interest of Justice were suspense masterpieces with strong female characters. Now she's created one of her most sympathetic heroines in Ann Carlisle, a probation officer in danger from an unknown enemy who wants to harm her and her teenage son. What Ann doesn't know is whether this has something to do with one of her earlier cases -- or something to do with her husband, who vanished mysteriously four years ago. A drug dealer who saves her from a bullet has some grisly secrets of his own to hide, and Ann's lover grows more and more distant. Soon Ann realizes that she can trust no one, and must find her attacker alone.